James105

The UK tests more than any other country so of course picks up more cases. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104645/covid19-testing-rate-select-countries-worldwide/

Silly sausages. The only way they will get tourists back is by allowing fully vaccinated people in without needing to fill out loads of forms/insurance etc and letting them start their holiday the minute they land. Imprisoning them for 24 hours whilst awaiting the results of a test that is not 100% reliable sounds like a very stressful way to start a holiday.

In other news King Canute is heading down to the sea to try to stop the tide coming in...

Why don't you just pretend the lockdown is still happening when/if it happens and stay indoors if you are scared?

The way I read this it seems that they are going to allow perfectly safe venues (such as an outdoor restaurant) to sell alcohol at the same time as the indoor nightclubs. If their intention is to increase covid cases and blame it on alcohol with the intention of permanently banning it then this would be one way to go about it I suppose.

"MorChana to have face recognition integrated" ... in a country that mandates face masks everywhere. Clowns.

He nearly died of covid because he is morbidly obese (or was at the time).

Indeed, and some of those 7 countries that remain on the red list are in better positions than Thailand. Columbia for example, with a population of 50m has a mere 1400 cases per day on average, 34% fully vaccinated and is still on the red list. Thailand with circa 10,000 cases a day with 35% fully vaccinated is off the red list. I think science and logic was abandoned in favour of plucking decisions out of a hat some time ago when it comes to anything related to covid, so maybe he should be praised for getting Thailand randomly picked out of a hat to come off the red list.

Do Russia and China both allow visitors to enter those countries without quarantine if they have "western" vaccines then?

Ok. So let's try it this way. Does the vaccine protect you? Yes - Then stop worrying about other people taking it. You and others that took it are safe. No - Then stop forcing people to take something that you don't believe works.

Why? To achieve what? Is there any indication the people here are as hesitant as the French to get vaccinated? Did the PM here publicly trash one of the vaccines available which of course put people off taking it and other vaccines for political reasons? I can't help but feel the vaccines I received are not effective as they didn't give me a desire to control what other people choose to put into their bodies and demand proof that they have done so in the same way that it has to others.

I'd wait until Monday as it should be clarified then, but it seems that a "vaccine certificate" is all that is required for other non-EU or USA countries so I do not see why Thailand would be a "special case" and something different would be required.

If they used the same metrics to decide cause of death as they used for Covid (e.g dying within 28 days of a positive test for having a cold), then that would be potentially millions wouldn't it?

I presume someone in the Thai medical association is being paid/bribed by the tobacco companies and their lobbyists. The companies who sell highly addictive cigarettes would much prefer those that smoked did not have legal access to a much safer alternative that has helped millions around the world give up the significantly more lethal tobacco based cigarettes.

In that case based on what you said here I presume you cannot find it.

The UK does not recognise vaccines administered in countries outside of the EU/USA, other than maybe Japan or Singapore, even if they are the same Pfizer vaccines administered in the UK. I of course have a certificate and the app from here, but it's useless in the UK and there is no way to get this added to the NHS app. This will apply of course to anyone that travels to the UK that has been vaccinated in a country other than EU/USA. So it actually discriminates against quite a lot of people who actually have been vaccinated. Like I say, it's a poorly thought out policy that has been implemented without proper scrutiny that will discriminate against people who have had the vaccines as well as those who have not. Anyone of reasonable intelligence would recognise this and be against it.

The rules are no different for vaccinated or unvaccinated people though. As someone who has had vaccines I can no more have an alcoholic drink with my meal in a restaurant than someone who has not had them, even if I go with my vaccinated girlfriend and are served by vaccinated staff with meals prepared by vaccinated chefs. Nor can I easily escape this tyranny as the vaccines administered here are not recognised by my home country so I would be treated as unvaccinated. Life is as far away from normal as it ever has been. Vaccines have not changed a thing, and unless they had an ingredient in them that lowers puritanical attitudes in those that make the rules, I don't see how they would do.

It would discriminate against me, someone who has received 2 doses of Pfizer vaccines (as they were administered in Thailand), so if I were to go back to the UK and visit Scotland then I would not be allowed access to certain places. Every person of reasonable intelligence should be against poorly thought out and poorly executed policies such as these as it doesn't just discriminate against the people you think it does.

Alcohol hasn't been banned. The people truly suffering are not the alcoholics as they can stock up on whatever they want and drink themselves into oblivion at home if that is their desire, but the people who rely on selling alcohol as part of their business model are suffering. Other than McDonalds etc, the restaurant trade relies on alcohol sales as they cannot make money on purely selling food. I haven't been to a restaurant in months simply as it's not really the same without alcohol. I don't drink a lot (maybe once or twice a week) as I need my brain functioning for what I do for work, but I only really enjoy the restaurant experience with a few glasses of wine or beer. So we have replaced restaurants with BBQs at my place where we don't need to worry about curfew and drinks can be consumed in a glass. This means the money I spend on food/drink only goes to the supermarkets, who are not struggling financially and none of my income goes locally to those who own these restaurants who are struggling. I do not think I am in the minority here. If you opened a puritanical restaurant (other than a fast food type of joint like a McDonalds) that doesn't sell alcohol your business will probably fail very hard and very quickly as the majority of people, even if you served great food, would probably prefer to go somewhere that does.

From the article: "Thailand could also become a quarantine-free destination, but was said to be a “more marginal call”.

Indeed, and unfortunately I guess we are relying on the same companies to invent a "treatment" for this virus that would negate the need for vaccines. Since treatments are only given to those who are actually ill, I am struggling to think what the motivation is for them to invent this as they would immediately lose 99.9% of their vaccine customers overnight. Maybe I'm just being cynical and everyone involved has the best of intentions.

Money. It's always about the money. Pfizer are currently seeking approval to give it to over 5 year olds and I do not think they have any intention to stop there. Never before have they been able to be able to sell something to healthy people who do not need what they are selling, with full government approval and coercion all around the world. If at some point in the future we are all paying a Netflix type subscription to big pharma for our twice yearly vaccines when governments shift the responsibility for payment to the individual, I don't even think I would be surprised at this point.

Being useless is not actually an important factor when it comes to covid though. Many things that have been useless and ineffective have been implemented such as closing parks, mandatory facemasks outdoors, preventing literally anything whatsover to do with alcohol even in outdoor settings where no-one catches covid etc. The most important factor is how does the test make you feel if you are scared of Covid. If it makes you "feel" safe when it says negative, then in much in the same way that a comfort blanket will make a baby feel safe, it will pass the very, very low bar for "effectiveness" when it comes to Covid.

Loan sharks are busier at the moment as the government has taken away a lot of peoples ability to earn money, especially those working in the entertainment sector. Imagine if someone took away all your income and you had no savings. How long do you think you would last for without needing to borrow money to survive?

It's incredibly easy to enforce. I think the UK police just send some kids undercover every now and again to attempt to buy alcohol from shops they suspect might be selling it to minors. If they were allowed to buy then the shops were fined which is then publicised and no shop really bothers after that as there really isn't much money to be made from selling alcohol to kids and certainly not worthy of a risk of a fine. You don't punish the kids, you simply punish those that sell this stuff to kids. Not sure why this is considered difficult to some on here and if this is the reason behind the law then if they are doing this instead of actual enforcement then it probably doesn't really make any difference to the problem it is trying to solve. Which is why I suspect more puritanical reasons are involved in the law as I doubt even the law makers here are that dumb.